Thursday, October 09, 2014

Meet the Etrog Man from Yemen

Meet Etrog Man - the 72-year old Yemenite Jew who has made a speciality out of marketing the magical properties of this lemon-like 'vegetable', in great demand for the Jewish festival of Succot. Uzi-Eli was suckled by a she-goat in Yemen. When the goat was killed to provide meat for his family, then fleeing for Aden and Israel in 1949, Uzi-Eli never got over his loss. Wonderful article by Judy Maltz in Haaretz.

Uzi-Eli, the Etrog Man (photo: Emil Salman)

They call him the Etrog Man – and for good reason.

Uzi-Eli, as he is otherwise known, is the founder and owner of a
one-of-a-kind shop in Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market that sells all
things etrog, the citron fruit used in religious rituals during the
Jewish festival of Sukkot.

The etrog is not eaten during Sukkot, but rather, it serves as one of
the four plant species shaken to fulfill the mitzvah associated with
this holiday. According to Jewish legend, it’s meant to symbolize the
heart, and in its bumpy-skinned, lemon-like raw form, it makes an
appearance once a year, just before the start of this holiday. But in
the bottles, canisters and jars that line the shelves of Uzi-Eli’s tiny
shop, it’s a star all year around.

Among the assortment of derivative products here, there’s a spray made
from etrog peel that’s meant to cure acne, age spots, mouth sores,
baldness and even stuttering in young children. There’s a cream made
from crushed etrog seeds and coconut oil that supposedly smooths out
wrinkles. There’s a soap made from etrog essence that Uzi-Eli claims is
effective in combating dandruff and general itchiness. There’s an
ointment made from etrog extract, mint, ginger and cayenne pepper he
vows will cure sinus problems, hemorrhoids and chronic pain. There’s an
etrog drink sold in frozen packages that supposedly works wonders on
morning sickness in pregnant woman (“If a woman drinks this during her
pregnancy, the baby will also come out smelling as fragrant as the
fruit,” he assures a prospective buyer.)

There’s a special version of the popular Yemenite spice hilbe with a
bit of etrog extract mixed in that prevents the body, as Uzi-Eli
explains, from giving off the strong odor usually associated with this
condiment. And finally, there are the shop’s specialty smoothies made
from etrog and khat – a plant Yemenites traditionally chew that is known
for its stimulating effect – as well as a delicious etrog liqueur.

In the days leading up to Sukkot, Uzi-Eli’s shop is packed. Not only
with the usual curiosity seekers interested in sampling his natural
remedies, but also, shoppers in the market for an etrog to go with their
three-branch lulav (palm frond,) so that they can fulfill the special
mitzvah of Sukkot. In order to be considered kosher for the purpose of
performing this mitzvah, the etrog must in most cases have an intact
pitam, a small extension at the top of the fruit. But those with a
damaged pitams are also in demand, says Uzi-Eli, for use as decorations
in the hut-like sukkahs where many Jews traditionally eat their meals
during the seven-day holiday that starts at sundown on Wednesday.

A robust and jovial 72-year-old with a mop of white curls under his
yarmulke, Uzi-Eli and his potions are an unmistakable attraction in the
market. Barely has one group of young sight-seers exited the premises
when another enters (he gets anywhere from five to 20 groups a day, most
of them on organized tours of Jerusalem’s storied marketplace.) In
broken English, he regales them with tales of his childhood in Yemen. He
tells them about his two grandfathers, who happened to be brothers and
were both natural healers. He tells them about how one of them concocted
a potion to dry up Uzi-Eli’s mother’s milk when, as a toddler, he
refused to wean himself from her breast. He tells them about the goat
who replaced his mother as his main provider of food, showing how he
would get it to push its leg up in air so that he could crawl under its
body. He tells them about how that goat was killed so that the family
would have dried meat to eat on their long journey to the port city of
Aden, where they eventually boarded a plane to Israel in 1949, and how
he never overcame that loss. Then he proceeds to squirt the anti-acne
etrog spray on the face of one of his visitors who’s agreed to serve as a
guinea pig. Another gets a squirt of it in the mouth, and yet another
gets Uzi-Eli’s finger, with a dab of the special sinus ointment on it,
inserted straight up his nose.Read article in full(subscription required)

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Introduction

In just 50 years, almost a million Jews, whose communities stretch back up to 3,000 years, have been 'ethnically cleansed' from 10 Arab countries. These refugees outnumber the Palestinian refugees two to one, but their narrative has all but been ignored. Unlike Palestinian refugees, they fled not war, but systematic persecution. Seen in this light, Israel, where some 50 percent of the Jewish population descend from these refugees and are now full citizens, is the legitimate expression of the self-determination of an oppressed indigenous, Middle Eastern people.This website is dedicated to preserving the memory of the near-extinct Jewish communities, which can never return to what and where they once were - even if they wanted to. It will attempt to pass on the stories of the Jewish refugees and their current struggle for recognition and restitution. Awareness of the injustice done to these Jews can only advance the cause of peace and reconciliation.(Iran: once an ally of Israel, the Islamic Republic of Iran is now an implacable enemy and numbers of Iranian Jews have fallen drastically from 80,000 to 20,000 since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Their plight - and that of all other communities threatened by Islamism - does therefore fall within the scope of this blog.)